2006 Dominal crash
The '''2006 Dominal crash '''was an emergency landing on the Dominal Base conducted by fighter pilots John and Watson Court, the brothers of the incumbent President Gregory Court. On August 30, 2006, two fighter jets piloted by the brothers entered Sector 3 of the base, avoided missile fire, and crash-landed near the Center Platform, causing chaos. Senior officials - Richard Hall, Stratford Macintosh, and Michelle Ricker - witnessed the crash landing. The two pilots were pulled alive from the wreckage and thrown into the local political jail in the Center Platform on Sector 3. After the President allowed his younger brothers to stay on the base as new operator recruits on Sector 1, it set the stage for his ultimate demise in 2008 during the Battle of High Meadows. Background John and Watson Court were Air Force recruits at Fort Sundown in New Jersey. On The Dominal Base was the site of heavy rain in the weeks of August 2006; despite the humidity in late July, the late summer days didn't produce any tangible storms. The past few weeks had kept many of the operators in their rooms in an attempt to escape the dreariness, but the streets flooded again with soldiers in August as the rain washed away from the concrete buildings. Incident On August 30, 2006, Stratford Macintosh, the Head General of the Base for 12 years, ate lunch with two other senior administration officers - Richard Hall, the Sector 1 Supervisor, and Michelle Ricker, the Sector 3 Supervisor - at around 12:15 pm. Eating in one of the open courtyards where a deli cart operated on the border of Sector 2, it was their routine since January 1, 2006 when the sector supervisors were selected as administration officials. At 12:34 pm, General Macintosh and his companions were walking back to the parked car about twenty feet from the picnic table site when he was called on the radio by the watch tower's supervisor, Ethan Reid. He was notified that two unidentified aircraft were approaching the base at high speeds. The warning beacon was turned on and an air horn signaled a temporary threat. In one sweeping motion, two F-15 Eagle fighter jets whipped past them into the center of Sector 3. Several gunshots rang out into the sky from the Platform to bring down the planes. The two jets were identified as coming from Fort Sundown by their marked initials ''FSNJ. ''The pilots were ordered to eject immediately. By the time the two planes turned sharply back to the border of Sector 2, both pilots ejected and let their planes crash-land separately. One jet exploded into a heap of metal onto the Center Platform, sending several men on the ground into a scatter. That pilot pulled his parachute into the picnic table courtyard they had eaten lunch at. The second jet struck the ground near the Furnace Building in the Exterior Alley. The second pilot also landed near the wreckage site. Macintosh arrested the first pilot while other soldiers apprehended the second pilot. The two were placed in a high-security cell (L4) in the Center Platform after the circumstances of their crash-landing became known. Aftermath At 4 pm, President Gregory Court made an appearance to the political jail the two pilots were held in. He had come from the presidential compound and was told that they were his younger brothers, John and Watson Court. The jail had been carved out of the lower levels of the immense Center Platform by a contracting committee under the budget conditions of "renovation." When Court finally met with them along with Macintosh, he had to explain that they must have come through the alternate dimension site. They were kept in the cell for the remainder of the week, with food coming every four hours.